The business structure of the music industry is complex and challenging. For record labels, its complexity lies within the record labels' almost total dependence upon radio to generate product, i.e. pre-recorded music, sales through the exposure of its product to the public via radio airplay. The goal of record labels is to sell music product. The sales success of record labels depends, to a great extent, upon their ability to get their newly released songs exposed to the public and played on the radio.
Radio is an industry with a totally different goal, that being to generate profit from the sale of airtime advertising, the value of which is determined by the size and demographics of its audience. The goal of radio is to sell advertising. Radio stations do not directly make money by playing music, however record labels are dependent upon radio stations for the exposure of their product. One problem that currently exists is that record labels are subject to the decision making process of radio station programming department personnel and others described herein.
For record labels, the challenge is to select and release singles that not only consumers and listeners want to hear, but more importantly, singles that radio will be receptive to and will play. It is obvious how vitally important it is for record labels to be able to accurately identify these songs PRIOR to release to radio, and, once the song is released, to have documented market by market, station by station research information for radio promotion efforts. Another problem is that current decision making methods do not provide record labels with the ability to interact with a large percentage of the population universe. Labels are unable to interact with the population universe of consumers and are therefore, unable to make use of the wealth of consumer preference information that would be available if a gathering and collection and sorting and reporting method were available, thereby taking this information into account in the decision making process with regard to what song should be released as a single. Labels have extreme difficulty identifying what song should be released and desire a cost effective method that will allow for the collection of consumer preference information from a larger population universe or sample than that currently employed in current research methods, all increasing the rate of success with regard to the release of new singles. The invention described herein alleviates the problems experienced by record labels described thus far.
For the radio industry, the challenge is to attract and keep listeners. They do so by playing songs that are proven to be familiar to listeners. Familiar songs keep the maximum number of listeners tuned in and allow the station to keep advertising rates at a premium. Newly released songs are obviously not familiar immediately upon release. Consequently, radio is hesitant to “add” a new/unfamiliar song immediately upon release. This scenario is compounded tremendously when a new artist releases a new song. Thus, if radio does not elect to add a song to a playlist, the listening public may never know the song exists, and as a result, artists and record labels suffer.
Further complicating the music business landscape is the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which increased the number of stations radio groups can own in a market. Tremendous consolidation in the radio industry has resulted. Consequently, “group” programming decisions are often made and stations seem to depend upon and cater to “recurrents” in programming, regardless of specific market demographics and associated consumer preferences in those specific markets. “Recurrents” can be defined as songs that have previously been “hits” and are therefore proven to be familiar to listeners. Keep in mind, stations derive income from the sale of advertising, and therefore, maintaining a listener base is of tremendous importance. The fear of losing listeners or the need to maintain a listener base, many times, requires a conservative programming approach which tends to rely heavily on Recurrents, a programming strategy that can be viewed as having less risk when compared to programming newly released material.
To a great extent, stations also rely upon “consultants” to assist in their programming efforts. Consultants typically utilize song research methods which recently have come under fire for being “badly gathered,” and “grossly in error about the true appeal of the music.” From this research information, many times, across the board programming decisions are made, resulting, once again, in less than “current” songs being programmed, with the playlist catering to Recurrents.
Furthermore, there is a “pre-selection” procedure employed within the stations' programming department and by the consultants whereby a certain number of songs released by the labels are rejected after being heard by either station personnel or consultants, with no or very little exposure to the listener(s). It would not be uncommon for some songs to be eliminated from further consideration based on the decisions made by the station personnel or consultants.
Therein lies another problem. Certainly, it is near impossible for one, two or even a small and/or limited group of individuals to accurately identify what listeners and music consumers within a specific city would like to hear.
Labels, consultants and radio stations also employ “focus group,” “auditorium” and “call-out” research to determine consumer appeal. Many times in each case, a “predetermined” set of participants are selected to participate in the testing, based on preconceived ideals established by the label or station. For example, they may be interested in gathering information pertaining to a song or songs with regard to females, who meet certain age, income and education levels.
Yet, this creates another problem. What about all of the other possible combinations of individuals in the population universe that might like the song who have been eliminated from participating and having a voice in the music industry?The invention somewhat reverses the current process of labels and stations creating a product only to have to go looking to identify who likes the product. The invention provides consumers with the opportunity to identify themselves. The user comes to the manufacturer as opposed to the manufacturer going to the user. To a certain degree, the decision making process with regard to single selection on the part of a record label and the corresponding “add” decision on the part of a radio station could be likened to a “guessing game.”
Obviously, the record and radio industries have a definite tie, a dependence upon each other, but have different agendas. The question arises: Are stations playing what the listeners want to hear, or what the stations want the listeners to hear?
What is needed, then, is an exposure medium that provides music consumers with access to all new releases by established artists and all new releases by new artists and a universal, large scale information collection apparatus that provides the universe of music consumers with the ability to convey preference information which can then be retrieved and sorted by various demographic and geographic parameters by the music industry, defined as record labels, radio stations and music retailers, thereby insuring that record labels release songs which they know “test” well among radio listeners and furthermore insuring that radio stations can accurately identify the songs their specific listeners want to hear.
Also, what has been needed is a method that provides for the one to one communication with music consumers. To this stage, when a music consumer makes a purchase, the industry has been unable to accurately and specifically identify the qualities of who that consumer is and have been unable to interact and communicate with that consumer.
What is needed then is a system that combines all of these qualities.